The Gallifreyan Gazette Pages

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: Planet of Spiders

Doctor Who

Planet of Spiders

By Robert Sloman

“A tear, Sarah Jane? No,
don't cry. While there's life there's.”

The Doctor has received a
package in the mail from Jo.She has
returned The Great Crystal because it was giving her a bad vibe and sent back
to him to sort out.The Doctor and
Brigadier go and see clairvoyant Professor Herbert Clegg and have him look at
the crystal. That idea back fires on The Doctor as Clegg sees images of giant
spiders and ends up dying from a fear induced heart attack.

Meanwhile at a Buddhist
meditation clinic Mike Yates suspects that a group is meeting secretly in the
cellar and trying to conjure up something to give them great power.Mike asks Sarah Jane to help him out and
after almost getting run over by a hallucination of a tractor.Sarah and Mike then sneak into the cellar and
watch what is going on when they see a giant spider materialize.

It appears both events are
connected as the Spiders of Metabillis 3 want the great crystal so the Great
One can achieve great mental power and rule over everything.The Doctor has to try and find a way to stop
the spiders and to free the two legs from being slaves to the spiders.Unfortunately what The Doctor ends up doing
might cost him his 3rd incarnation and cause him to regenerate.

The Planet of the Spiders
is a great send off for the second longest tenured Doctor.It is one of those classic stories that incorporates
everything that the Pertwee era has.It
has the UNIT aspect as half the story takes place on Earth with the UNIT guys
trying to stop the Spiders agent Lupton from stealing the great crystal. This is the part of the story I liked the most
as I enjoyed Jon Pertwee’s Earth bound adventures better than the ones on
another planet.There was a certain
charm watching that and he made more gadgets to help save the day. In the case
of The Planet of Spiders we have the Who Mobile.I love this vehicle ever since it was in
Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

The sequences on
Metabillis 3 I thought were not as good as the scenes on Earth but they weren’t
bad either. Unfortunately it was the society being enslaved by a superior race
and were trying to find a way to get its freedom.It is a concept that has been done to death
in 70’s Doctor Who and done quite a lot during the Pertwee years. So by this time you are tired of it but it
does help add filler to the story and brings up some good moments and things we
never knew about The Doctor like being afraid of The Great One.

It was good to see Mike
Yates redeem himself after he turned traitor in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.Mike Yates has been a big part of the Pertwee
years and it is good to see him go out as a good guy.Plus Planet of the spiders has a pretty good
chase scene in it.I love how they used
all different types of vehicles and ended up flying in the Who Mobile.It was just a fun sequence to watch and did
define Pertwee as the man of action.

Planet of Spiders is one
of the better stories to end a Doctor’s era.It is a pretty good way for The Doctor to sacrifice himself by facing
his fears and being true to himself.Jon
Pertwee gives us one last great performance as The Doctor and gives us one of
the best last lines in the show’s history.It ends and era on a high by using all the elements that made his era
memorable. A fitting send off for the
Third Doctor

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